Three advisory committees will oversee the work of the project: the Executive Committee and the Academic and Cultural Advisory Committees. These bodies each serve a different function in the delicate collaboration between disciplines, cultures and communities. Members will actively participate to ensure the appropriateness of all activities, meeting frequently, using video-conferencing. They will engage and support the research and Indigenous communities in collaborative work, building a equitable, mutually-dependent foundation for ongoing work.
These committees have not yet been formed.
Ongoing consultation with Indigenous Elders in relation to the cultural knowledge and project’s direction is essential and central to this application. Other community members will participate at various stages of the project. Some Quinkan Trustees live outside Laura, eg at Hopevale, in Cape York, but on the far side of the river in the wet season. Elders and community members must be funded to travel and to work, at the specified government rate.
Dr Cole will be employed by JCU specifically to work on the project. She will lead liaison with the Indigenous communities and will provide expertise and guidance in cultural matters.
Liddy Nevile will be the Project Manager as well as actively involved in the project’s research and development. The project and its many interdependencies demand tight coordination at all stages. A Project Administrator will be employed to support the Project Manager. The Project Administrator will be Melbourne-based.
Robert and Andrew Donald (Motile) will be responsible for requirements discovery and analysis, system architecture and design, build and user acceptance testing, installation, and maintenance training. Other members of the development team, including the university staff, APAI-ITs and participants from La Trobe, will work with the Messrs Donald.
As the Project depends upon some proprietary development, parallel software development activities will be undertaken by Motile Research and La Trobe University under a separate agreement. This activity will be coordinated with the Matchbox Project.
Given the ‘tyranny of distance’ inherent in this project and some participants who are elderly, video-conferencing has been selected as an economical way of maintaining regular communication. JCU uses video-conferencing extensively. Adding one unit in Laura extends both the video and Internet network to all team members and will be used for meetings.
All regular equipment and working facilities for programmers and other participants will be provided by the industry partners and universities involved.
The ARC grant provides for three special production PCs :
Scheduling for the project is shown in the Gantt chart.